Bessie

Christiern Gunnar Albertson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland on October 18, 1931. He became a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio in Keflavik before moving to the United States in 1957. He worked as a disc jockey at a radio station in Philadelphia. He moved to New York in the 1960s and became a producer for Riverside Records. He spent one year as a radio station manager in 1964. He was also writing liner notes for jazz albums and was a critic with Stereo Review magazine.

He produced a multivolume reissue of Bessie Smith's recordings. The five two-disc sets were released between 1970 and 1972. He received a Grammy Award for best liner notes for Bessie Smith: The World's Greatest Blues Singer. His biography, Bessie, was published in 1972. He was found dead on April 24, 2019 at the age of 87.

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